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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25259419">Escaping the Stench</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestiniDestati/pseuds/DestiniDestati'>DestiniDestati</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Background Relationships, Blood, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:34:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,007</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25259419</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestiniDestati/pseuds/DestiniDestati</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aqua just wanted to go home after all this time, but nothing felt like home. Soon the decisive battles of the Keyblade War would occur, and the only luxury she could afford herself now was a shower.</p><p>CW: Self harm, Blood<br/>Background Ships: Soriku</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Escaping the Stench</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Aqua looked through the rear of the gummi ship. She ignored all attempts at conversation, stuck in her head. For a decade she sat in her head-- her mind began to twist to favour her deepest fears. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re only as sick as your secrets.</span>
  </em>
  <span> A voice echoed the phrase in her mind at some point in her endless trek through the monotonous Darkness. Discussions ranged around her, but she couldn’t care enough to listen too closely. She didn’t have anything to add other than repetitive misery.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ventus rode with them in the Gummi Ship. She fulfilled one promise, but they still had yet to find Terra. The subject danced around them, no one saying much one way to another about him. The others didn’t want to break the undoubtedly bad news to her, to Ven. They were going to Master Yen Sid’s tower. She didn’t want to go there just yet. Images of him saying Ventus would slumber endlessly, that it was beyond her help, his help, and the King’s haunted her. She was supposed to be a master, and she couldn’t even save one of the most important people to her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The faith Aqua once had in her Masters faded early into her endless walk-- </span>
  <em>
    <span>though it wasn’t so endless, now was it?--</span>
  </em>
  <span> her mind supplied to the spiral she caught herself in. Her faith in herself fell away soon after, the questioning of the system followed and took up a majority of her sojourn. If Master Eraqus had more faith in Terra, would they have had more nights under the stars? Could they have conquered Xehanort-- what if, what if, what if, what-- Aqua shook her head, covering her eyes between her thumb and forefinger.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ansem the Wise, though how wise was he to trap himself on the Shores of the Realm Between, the ones once so close to the Destiny Islands, regardless, ensured her that not all the Worlds had succumbed. That the Castle of Dreams, the Enchanted Dominion, and Dwarf Woodlands had indeed been restored. Other worlds she had never visited, nor had she knew of were also restored by Sora. That much like Terra, Riku had set off a chain reaction to aid in their fall. Every so often she peered at the former and Riku sitting in discussion. A certain fondness between the two that pulled at something deep in her stomach. It could be hunger, though that would be a sharper, physical pain. No, this felt too much like when she would jump from the swings when Eraqus instructed her not to. Too much like her physical fall into the Darkness.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her emotions were going to have to be resigned to another time, another place. Aqua surrounded herself with a silence spell, her ability to tune out the others decreasing rapidly. Could she even hold a conversation anymore? Did she even desire to hold deep conversations when she had seen the deepest of her soul? She couldn’t answer for sure, and tried to push the line of thinking away. Her skin crawled with a stench she couldn’t identify. She was deprived of a hot shower for so many years, that had to be the cause. A stench of the Darkness, and no doubt of sweat and trauma.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her heart ached with so much abandonment. It made the decision to deny anyone conversation with her out of character. Aqua couldn’t tell her nature any longer, but she needed to scrape off a few layers of her skin with the roughest cloths she found. Nothing in her body would allow her anything else. She tasted Darkness in her mouth, felt it dripping from her ears. All she could do was slink off into a room for herself and wallow. She deserved it. Ventus threw worried and lonely looks at her, but she looked away before she could see him reach for her. If she weren’t mistaken, Riku placed a firm hand on her chest to keep the un-aged blond from following.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His youth, her youth reeked of her failure. Aqua clenched her jaw, slamming the room’s door behind her, ignoring the vicious sound that echoed around. Her head hurt, her mouth was slimy, her stomach cold and sick. Everything about her was wrong, everything. Everything disgusting. Everything repulsive, and she was addicted to the negativity now. She couldn’t do anything to save herself, nor anyone else. How could she be a guardian when she had failed time, and time, and time again? Eraqus and Terra and Ven. Her failure danced around her in the same way her phantom did. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aqua stalked directly into the judging gaze of the mirror on the door. If this room could be anything she desired, why did it include the punishment of her visage? She stripped of the ribbons across her chest in the mirror, pulling at the emblem marking her a Master--taunting her as a student of a failed Master. The metal emblem clattered to the floor, the purple fabric frayed around the tears. She ripped off her gloves without undoing any of the hooks and eyes. She took no mercy on the pauldrons on her arms, punching the button enough to slam it in her skin. It could leave a bruise for all she cared. The magic metal around her feet faded with the magic of her outfit. Aqua had to take too much time to undo the corset, the damn thing too well laced to give her the benefit of angry freedom.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At some point, she began to tear at the clothes, digging unforgiving fingers into the fabric and pulling with all the strength of the warrior she was supposed to be. All with well formed muscles with deceptive strength. Shreds of fabric hung around her hips and pooled at her ankles. The bruise on her arm grew. Noise clattered from under the door of her dormitory and she screeched out a spell of silence. Too long she sat in the oppressive lack of noise. Her own voice was the only thing she could tolerate to hear, and she couldn’t handle even that much at the present. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She took in her nude form, something she hadn’t done in so long. This body wasn’t hers. It hadn’t been for so long, it was a form of the Darkness and fear ingrained with her. A victim to the anger and betrayal her heart had suffered. Something she knew she hadn’t lost, but it felt as such. Her chest sped up with its physical heart; her fingers tingled with neuropathy, pain and itchiness, the need to do something. Aqua wasn’t a brawler, that was more Terra, being large enough to do so with minimal damage. Though she wouldn’t deny that prior to puberty they would tussle. Eraqus was always pseudo disappointed in the closest thing that he had to children.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Terra, Eraqus, Ven, fuck. Fuck it, fuck them, fuck herself. She slammed a fist into the mirror, ignoring the blood and bits of glass embedded into he skin. A second time she punched again, followed by a third hit and an unquenched rage. Failure and </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck </span>
  </em>
  <span>and anger and falling and it was all her. All her body culminated into what this was, the actions of destroying the portrait of herself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She couldn’t be a guardian, she couldn’t save herself, much less anyone else. No one would accept her again, this was as close as it came. Accepting the self inflicted punishment time again. Her throat ran raw from the sudden use of dark and guttural growling. This was her now, wasn’t it? Revenge and anger and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hatred</span>
  </em>
  <span> running her skin hot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She shook with the adrenaline drop before shambling over to the open shower. She could only turn the water as hot as it would go. Any damage she could cure, pour a potion over. Aqua stumbled into the shower, seating herself right behind the drain. Glass and reflective plate embedded itself under her skin, leaving no option to deny what she had done. Her body went cool in spite of the heat of the water while her senses came back. Blood dripped down her hands and arm taking with minuet little slivers of glass with it. She stared in awe at the damage as her senses came back to her. She squeezed herself as small as her frame would allow while she sat, unmoving, staring at her fists over her knees.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aqua didn’t feel better, but her rage had been taken away from her. As if a little signal in her brain said “it’s time to stop this”. She picked at the shrapnel occupying her hand, the larger ones, at least. Aqua sighed, pushing a few pieces over the drain. The water began to run cold, or maybe the cold was coming from her. She stretched herself out on the floor, the shower seeming to modify itself with her. Aches and sharp pains came from the soles of her feet. Aqua squeezed her eyes close. She had walked on the shattered mirror in her haze.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The part of her that persevered for years on end told her to tend to her wounds and scrub down. The part that was self flagellating told her to push through the pain and scrub down with the wash cloths hanging on a bar in the shower. As a midway, she took a cloth and the bar of soap, and began with her feet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As she washed, she picked pieces out of her soles, setting them just outside the shower. The water leaked all over the room from the spray and the condensation building up around her. The building self preservation made a note to not slip on the floor. She’d broken a bone while learning to ice skate when she was younger. Her child self snapped a bone in her left forearm in a poorly executed fall. Sometimes it still ached, even with the healing spells and potion to soothe the worst of it. She had a fight in the next few days, and a misplaced hip or chipped bone would make the likelihood of her failure increase tenfold.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The pile of glass she had accumulated so far glittered like red ice. She sighed, attempting to stand on wobbly legs. A headrush kept her from getting too far, and Aqua sat back on the shower floor. She took another cloth that was crisp and white to replace the pinkish her of the other. The fight with her phantom came back to her. The darkness in her felt less dark in the sense of blackness, but white in the sense of nothingness. Endless nothingness and ice. The beach she sat on was white framed by dark borders and a haunting moon-like light. She ran the cloth and soap up and down her legs until they were red with the motions. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It dawned on Aqua that she smelled disgusting. Not so much like she hadn’t showered in years, but more like the had the Dark World clinging to her. She crinkled her nose, smelling too much like bloodied but rotting meat. Like the Heartless she fought did. “Ugh!” she scrubbed harder, running through frenzied motions of soaping up and scrubbing until her skin stung under the cold water. The soap held no scent, but that could be forgiven for the most part. She would have to see if anyone had anything that would fill her senses with anything other than what was assaulting her now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aqua pulled herself up by the bar, the grip causing her to yelp in pain from the glass still embedded in her hands. But she didn’t let up on her grip. Using one arm to balance herself and the other to hold the wash cloth, she scrubbed down. She avoided her hips and breasts, her body had looked the same for years now. She still looked the same as she did when she was 17, but she was 29 now. Her mind couldn’t wrap around the disconnect between her mind and body. Her form hadn’t changed in years. Nothing on the outside changed except for her episode as the Dark form of herself. Aqua shivered. She glanced back at her hands, the blood trailing reminding her of that moment. “Curara,” she hissed, trying to take slow breaths to keep her heart rate under control. In the moment of clarity that followed, she realised the glass was now </span>
  <em>
    <span>under</span>
  </em>
  <span> her skin…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aqua tossed the wash cloth on the ground and wrapped herself in a towel. She was running out of energy at a rapid pace, and she deserved rest after all of this time. She walked out with her hair dripping to see her dormitory door cracked. Aqua tip toed to the door, her feet still sore from the abuse. Around the door hinge she found Riku, head tilted back with his eyes closed. He opened one eye to peek at her, “are you okay, I smelled blood.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The statement caught her off guard, and she stood with her eyes squinted and lips parted while she parted. “You smelled blood and decided to sit outside my door?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” He asked again, pulling himself back up to standing. She had to tilt her head up to meet his eyes, something dancing behind the green of them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She shook her head. Weakness wasn’t like her, but she had fought him and Sora. She owed him something, she rationalised. Honesty, if nothing else.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Riku held out a hand to her, no pressure behind it, but she showed him the damage. He frowned at it and dropped his hand away. “There’s glass under there? Aqua…” He put a hand on his hip to look away, pain clear on his face. “Let me help you.” It wasn’t a suggestion, but bordering on a command.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“... Okay.” Aqua closed the door, looking around to see night clothes on the bed. Probably left by the brooms she had seen wandering about. She changed into the sleep shirt and pants, then waved Riku into the room. It was sparse, but when she sat on the bed it was soft and firm enough for her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He shifted before he sat at the very edge of the bed to look at her. “You know you aren’t alone. I had to contend with my own darkness.” Riku flexed his hand, making a large, pinkish scar move with the moment. A stray line of thought made her wonder what caused that. “I’d lost myself, too… but the important part is that you were brought back from it. It wasn’t your fault that you gave in, no matter what your mind tells you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aqua chewed on her lip. “I’m… I’m afraid of falling again. I… I can’t let anyone--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Riku leaned to take her fingers in his palms, “you’re home, you’re in the realm of light. You're not alone anymore. It’s going to take all of us, you know that, right?” He gave the gentlest of squeezes, deceptively soft. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“When did you grow up to be so kind?” She asked, a cough preceding the tears she had to dab at with her shirt. If she closed her eyes, she could see the little boy with big turquoise eyes, whose heart rivaled Terra’s. Or the boy that she sacrificed herself only a few years ago. He’d grown up to be someone actually worthy of being a Keyblade Master. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He didn’t say anything, but the soft smile on his face and sparkle behind his now-shamrock eyes told her all she needed to know. “Will you let me help you with your hands?” He asked, standing to shuffle through the vanity for a pair of tweezers and small, small scissors. Aqua watched him grimace as he opened the door, opting to lean over the mess to grab the unused wash cloths.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aqua relented to the help. “I didn’t recognise myself anymore… I </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> recognise myself anymore.” The admission hurt, but she knew it was true when Riku said he had his own darkness. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Other</span>
  </em>
  <span> her recognised it for what it was. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was cathartic to realise that, in a way.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They mumbled back and forth. Riku asked how she had found the Destiny Islands, Aqua asked how he first met Mickey. Some things Riku danced around, but Aqua had her own subjects to skate away from as well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The talking kept the pain to a minimum while Riku pulled out bits of glass with expertise and the care of a healer. He talked about being the oldest on the island, and how there were plenty of splinters to be shared by the younger version of him and his childhood friends. It kept the conversation light from there. Aqua talked about how it was when Terra was first brought to the Land of Departure. For as long as she had known, it was her and Eraqus, except for the rare other teachers to educate her on things Eraqus did not know. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Curaga,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Riku whispered before gathering up the items he used to let Aqua settle. He came back with clean hands and a glass of water. “Go to sleep, you’re allowed.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aqua took the water to set it on the side table before wrapping her arms around his waist, ear close enough to hear his heart beat. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was hugging her old best friend. She pulled back and put a hand to his cheek, “you need to rest, go to bed.” She told him before shooing him away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If someone who fell to darkness could grow into someone like Riku… well, she could be redeemed too, couldn’t she? That, the morality of her heart and whether she could be saved could wait until tomorrow. So much would need to be done in the next few days, and she hoped finding Terra made that list.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For now? She snuggled in to the first bed she had seen in years, and reveled in the feeling of cleanliness and safety that had come upon her.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Unbeta'd man, @me on Twitter @PrinceDestati</p></blockquote></div></div>
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